Almeida, Diane M.

About the author: Dr. Almeida is a received her PHD in Drama from Tufts University. She has been on the Theatre Arts Faculty at U.Mass Boston and on the Faculty of the U.Mass Boston Playwriting and Performance on Nantucket Program for ten years. She has written a number of articles, is author of several plays , and has directed and designed more than thirty productions in the Greater Boston area.

Esperpento Tradition in the Works of RamÓn De Valle InclÁn and Luis BuÑuel

2000 0-7734-7693-8
Valle-Inclán’s esperpentos are a particularly Spanish style of black comedy. This work analyses Valle-Inclán’s works, defines precisely what the term esperpento means, and what technique Valle-Inclán used to achieve his aesthetic. These techniques are demonstrated by examples from the plays themselves. The second part examines the manner in which Valle-Inclán’s esperpento blends with Buñuel’s surrealistic films, particularly Un Chien andalou, L’age d’or and Tierra Sin Pan. This book serves as a study of Spanish literature and film at the beginning of the 20th century, and as a demonstration of the great and often unacknowledged debt that the cinema owes to the theatre.